2013, Edinburgh:

Talks:

• Special care for historical collections – The Timor collection at Naturalis Biodiversity centre (the Netherlands). Natasja den Ouden.
• The use of expansive demolition agents for the extraction of large and delicate dinosaur fossils from the Upper Cretaceous of South-central Pyrenees (Catalonia, Europe). Galobart Lorente.
• Estimating the volumes and masses of big plaster field jackets. Donald Henderson.
• Why look at fossils in infra-red? Nigel Larkin.
• ‘King Long Dan’: Excavation, export and experience. Jeff Liston.
• The Trento experience: Building life-size models of extinct species and shipping them 1,000 miles to Italy. Bob Nicholls.
• The new palaeobiology store at National Museums Scotland. Andrew Ross

Posters:

• Pros and cons of restoration. Vicen Carrió
• Storage enhancement of the Palaeontological collection at Facultad de Ciencias (Uruguay): Quaternary vertebrates make the first move. Alejandra Rojas. 

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Pros and cons of restoration

Vicen Carrió1 Fatima Marcos2

1 - National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.

2 - T.E. de restauración paleontológica de “Lo Hueco”, Spain.

The criteria for conservation and restoration of a specimen have always been problematic. Restoration has been an issue that has generated controversy: should we restore missing parts at all? How far should we intervene and interpret? What should we use? Do we have the proper training to do so? In palaeontological preparation the issue is even more complex. In most cases, the restoration is not for aesthetics, but to give stability to the specimen. We are rediscovering animals and plants that lived in the past, and in many cases, we do not know their anatomy. The collaboration between the researchers and the preparators will dictate the way in which the restoration will be undertaken, according to the scientific use of the piece. Common to all the criteria used is that the restoration must be reversible and recognizable, so that we can always return the piece to its original condition. Furthermore, all conservation materials used should be compatible with the original fossils. The characteristics of the added parts must be similar and not cause further damage or deterioration to the specimen. Currently, in conservation and restoration, we use a number of acrylic resins, which have been proven to be inert and reversible. Resins are used both in restoration for structural reinforcement, and for aesthetic restoration. These resins are miscible with various types of fillers that will modify their colour, texture or hardness. Different situations call for different mixtures of solvent, fillers and resins to be used. Depending on the amount of product to be mixed and the percentage of the resin with respect to the solvent, the ‘characteristic’ result product will be different, allowing us to apply it as the piece requires.

The use of expansive demolition agents for the extraction of large and delicate dinosaur fossils from the Upper Cretaceous of South-Central Pyrenees (Catalonia, Europe)

Angel Galobart, Albert Garcia-Sellés & Bernat Vila*

Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.

The uppermost Cretaceous fossiliferous rocks from Coll de Nargó (Lleida, Catalonia) mainly consist of cemented calcareous mudstones with strong lithological resistance. In these conditions, the use, for the first time, of expansive demolition agents (EDA) in rock volume containing fossils was found to be an efficient alternative to pneumatic hammers or heavy machinery. The use of expansive demolition agents is common in mining and quarrying. Recently, non-explosive agents have been also used as a successful methodology for removing rock blocks in palaeontological fieldwork. Here, we present two examples of the usage of EDA in palaeontological fieldworks consisting of the removal of large and heavy blocks containing delicate and/or small-sized fossils. The first example consists of the extraction of the largest dinosaur clutch described in Europe, containing 28 dinosaur eggs, which is 1 m3 in volume and about 2 tonnes in weight. The second one involves a minute vertebrate skeleton in anatomical connexion. In both cases, multiple equidistant holes of 50 mm diameter were drilled around the fossil remains, and then filled with the expansive demolition agent. After a few hours the agent reached its maximum pressure on the rock (9,000 tonnes/m2), cracked the surrounding sediment and left the fossils intact to be removed with safety. Protective gypsum jacket, acrylic resins, polyurethane and even iron structures are good complements to protect and transport fossils to the restoration laboratory.

Estimating the volumes and masses of big plaster field jackets

Donald Henderson

Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Drumheller, Canada.

Recovering the fossil remains of dinosaurs and other large Mesozoic reptiles frequently involves creating and moving very large blocks of rock that can sometimes weigh up to several tonnes. Accurately knowing the mass of a fossil block greatly assists in planning how to move it, what equipment will be needed, and what sort of powered lifting in the forms of trackhoes, cranes, and even helicopters will be required. The storage of large blocks also requires knowing the masses of blocks as the loading capacities of shelves, tables and floors need to be taken into consideration. It has been our experience at the Tyrrell Museum that people typically tend to underestimate the masses of large fossil jackets. Using some recently collected large jackets as worked examples – a plesiosaur removed as six small to medium jackets and a very large partial Triceratops – several different techniques for making estimates of their masses were tried. These jackets were then weighed with a digital scale, and the percent error of the mass estimates were calculated. Approximating the shape and dimensions of plaster jackets with tri-axial ellipsoids produced the best estimates, but these tended to underestimate the true weight by 6-7%. In contrast, approximating a jacket with a rectangular box that fully enclosed it, tended to severely overestimate the mass by up to 140% is some cases.

Why look at fossils in infra-red?

Nigel Larkin

Natural History Conservation, Newport, UK.

Geology and palaeontology collections often contain specimens that require quite different environmental conditions from one another. Therefore the environmental conditions of museum stores are generally kept in the middle ground as far as practically possible. It would make sense to try to understand the subtle differences in conditions provided within a storage area so that the material can be arranged accordingly, but subtle differences in environmental conditions are difficult to measure. However, modern digital infrared thermal imaging technology can provide exactly the sort of data required, and in incredible detail: an infrared camera providing an image resolution of just 640 x 480 pixels will give 307,200 separate temperature data points within an image, with an accuracy of about 0.1 °C to 0.045 °C. Bearing in mind we can quantify how much the relative humidity will rise or fall for every degree of change in temperature, this equipment provides a level of environmental analysis of museum collections areas that other data logging equipment cannot match, and presents it in a highly visual format that is generally intuitively understood but also easily analysed with proprietary software. There are many factors influencing the accuracy and interpretation of the data, however, so training is required. Uptake of the technology for collections management purposes in museums is currently in its infancy due to a lack of awareness of how the technology can be applied.

‘Kong Long Dan’: excavation, export and experience

Jeff Liston

Yunnan University, Yunnan, China.

Dinosaur eggs have been known from a variety of provinces of China for over 50 years. In the late 1980s, as large numbers were being unearthed by farmers, Chinese examples began to regularly enter collections throughout Europe, through the aegis of international fossil dealers. As small and discrete objects, they were appealing to museums, and presented a compelling object to swiftly capture the imagination of a public audience. From a research perspective, they were suddenly a new and accessible resource – the application of emergent scanning technologies to these objects (albeit with varying results) allowed the possibility of exploring the contents of unhatched eggs, in search of possible dinosaur embryos, and many research institutions acquired them with this in mind. Recently, moves have been made by the Chinese Government to repatriate such material, with some notable successes. This clearly presents some threats to museums and other institutions worldwide that either already hold such material, or are looking to acquire examples. Can this be legally done? What are the lessons in terms of acquiring material for either research work or museum collections? Perhaps more importantly, what are the potential dangers of repatriation of such objects in view of this new clampdown?

The Trento Experience: building life-like models of extinct species and shipping them 1000 miles to Italy

Robert Nicholls

Paleocreations, Bristol.

The new MUSE Science Museum in Trento, Italy was opened to the public on July 27th, 2013. I was commissioned to make life-like models (scale and life-size) of twenty extinct species for the museum. Great experience of dealing with complex technical problems was gained in the creation of these models. Slender invertebrate appendages require very different sculpting materials and techniques to those of the muscular bodies of larger vertebrates. So, how was a realistic finish achieved for such a wide variety of forms? And, once completed, how were these fragile one-of-a-kind items shipped undamaged 1000 miles from Bristol to Trento?

Special care for historical collections – The Timor Collection at Naturalis Biodiversity Center (the Netherlands)

Natasja den Ouden & Becky Desjardins

Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, Netherlands.

The Indonesian island of Timor is rich in sediments dating from the Permian period. These sediments are of marine origin and contain a very large amount of representatives of marine invertebrate groups (corals, brachiopods, ammonites, belemnites, blastoids, crinoids). At the beginning of the 20th century the species richness and outstanding preservation of the fossil material was recognized and several expeditions were organized. Most notable are the expeditions organized by Prof. Molengraaff (Delft University) from 1910-1912 and Prof. Brouwer (University of Amsterdam) in 1937. Both collections are now housed at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. Together they form the largest museum collection of Timor fossils worldwide and they are of great importance for the study and reconstruction of Permian marine ecosystems. As the material was collected a century ago, it is now suffering from degrading packaging material and fading ink on labels. A special project is underway to clean and repack the fossil material, digitize the information on the labels and photograph fading labels and type specimens. The project is part of a larger digitization program where a total of 37 million museum objects (fossils, rocks and minerals, recent plants and animals, but also registers and antique books and drawings) housed in Naturalis will be digitized and information made available on the internet. On top of this, our project is being carried out in the LiveScience hall of the museum, which means that visitors can see our work, monitor our progress and ask questions.

Storage enhancement of the Palaeontological Collection at Facultad de Ciencias (Uruguay): Quaternary vertebrates make the first move.**

Alejandra Rojas1, Martin Ubilla*1, Andrea Corona1, Andrés Rinderknecht1,2 & Fernanda Cabrera1

1 - Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.

2 - Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Montevideo, Uruguay.

The Palaeontological Collection at Facultad de Ciencias, Montevideo (FCDP) is the most representative collection of the rich Uruguayan fossil record in the country. Leaving behind past neglect, recent collection management activities have improved the care and condition of the FCDP fossil specimens. Some of the main problems of the FCDP are the virtual absence of a regular budget for supplies and the lack of space for the growth of the collection. However, a recent research project allowed the acquisition of three new cabinets, 2 m high, locked white metal made with 56 drawers each. As Uruguay represents an extremely small market, no specific natural history collection suppliers exist. Then, the new cabinets had to be designed and manufactured especially for the FCDP. These will allow the future growth of the collection and the relocation and reordering of pre-existing fossil specimens. The forefront in occupying the first drawers was the Quaternary continental vertebrates of the Sopas Formation of Uruguay, mostly represented by mammals. Almost 500 specimens and lots were moved. Many old fossil containers were replaced by lidded transparent boxes and the specimens were taxonomically ordered in the cabinets. Associated data was digitally recorded, taxonomic assignation was revised and updated and all specimens were imaged. The results of this effort are not only the evident enhancement of an important and well studied portion of the Uruguayan fossil record but also the highlight of the scientific and patrimonial value of the whole Palaeontological Collection.**Contribution to ANII/FCE-1-2009-2398 (M.U.)

The new Palaeobiology Store at National Museums Scotland

Andrew Ross

National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.

The new Palaeobiology Store at the National Museums Scotland is now open for visiting researchers to study its collections. The Royal Museum on Chambers Street, Edinburgh (now part of the National Museum of Scotland) was refurbished with new exhibition galleries, which opened in 2011. As part of this project, all the Palaeontology collections that were in the Royal Museum were moved to the National Museums Collections Centre (NMCC) at the north side of Edinburgh. A new extension to one of the existing stores was built and the Palaeontology collections are now housed on the ground floor. Moving of the collections commenced late 2010 and was finished by the summer of 2012. Since then the Palaeobiology curatorial team have been busy unpacking the specimens. The store is approximately 400 m squared with good environmental controls (temperature and humidity) and lights with motion sensors. There are two banks of mobile racking – 65 racks in all, 2 metres high. There are three types of storage – 1) 130 new lockable metal cabinets house the type & figured collection and part of the vertebrate collection; 2) the main racking houses the existing drawers and crates; 3) part of the racking has large open-span shelves to take some of the larger crates and slabs. So now the Palaeontology collections at National Museums Scotland (about 250,000 specimens) are housed in excellent conditions to safeguard them for future generations, and in one place – the first time for at least 50 years.